Shopping List Items: Toothpaste, Milk And Answering Service

It is 3:00 on a Friday afternoon and your supervisor calls you into her office to assign you the project of hiring an answering service. As she is talking to you all sorts of questions are running through your mind. It could turn out to be the best decision you have made or a disappointing answering service experience.

In this blog I will draw on my knowledge from this side of the desk and hopefully make your job of hiring an answering service easier and successful.

At a Better Connection we do not have "canned off the shelf pricing". In other words, I’m not able to quote a price without obtaining information from you. It is beneficial to have ready the information that will help the salesperson assess your needs. There are 3 pieces of important information that an answering service salesperson should obtain in order to give you an accurate quote.

1.  the amount of call traffic you expect,

2.  the dispatching procedure that will work best with your company/practice and

3.  if you have a prescreening announcement in place.

Before signing on the dotted line you should know how the answering service will charge your account. The typical answering service will offer flat rate, time usage, per unit basis or on a per call basis. At first glance some of these options are more attractive than others but that isn’t always the case. If you don’t understand, ask questions especially before signing a long term contract.

My point in this blog is make certain you set time aside for due diligence. The answering service you choose will represent your business and most often they are your client’s first impression of...you.